ElearninganddigitalculturalMOOCfromitaly

venerdì 20 aprile 2018

Some years ago I took a course about how to create my ideal ebook. I was helped by a team of educators who were working with Shelly Terrell in an EVO session.

This experience online marked my CPD and I could see some great works and learnt about the best tips .

Today I presented at Lend in Reggio Emilia what we can call a summary of the best ebooks and the platforms for creating ebooks. It is a long list of tools which are changing our way of working and can help us develop our own materials.

In the last two months I tried to find more platforms but I also realized the service might be poor quality in terms of what they offerred.

The website which I created online is part of my CPD and it contains links and examples of what we mean by creating ebooks. These can be read online, have links to other sources, documents and can be downloaded too. Not all platforms enable you to do this.

It is important to plan and to be able to try new tools. I feel that more teachers should become aware of what we can find online for free. Not only tools but also materials created by educators and their learners.

Just check on line what I have shared in my website and presentation at Lend in Reggio Emilia.

giovedì 12 aprile 2018

I have always been a lover of books. They have become part of my life, like eating some icecream or having a cup of tea in the afternoon. Daily routines which can help me dream, think and also feel a bit happier after some bad days.

Books may be neglected by our students but books can help us grow and become better learners.

Here is a short story I have created by using Google Docs and uploading it on a free service used for creating ebooks.

domenica 1 aprile 2018

While searching online in the last few days I came across these interesting resouces which I am going to use or might use in class.
Some are images, visual input which can provide content for learning and speaking. Most of them are shared by educators in their posts on social networks.

I am sharing them online as I feel that today free resources and lots of documents can be used or adapted for any lesson plan dealing with the topic and also history and English lessons.

Anthippi from Greece shared her ebook created by using an interesting app- I wish to thank her as we have been doing a lot of courses online and she's suggested useful tips and ideas for enhancing our teaching:

Some quotes and tweets can also help us reflect as educators and how to help our learners become responsible citizens of this world: here is one which I have found " encouraging " and " useful" for our learners: we do teach English and other subjects but we are educators and need to help think deeply-

“You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich man.”
~Seth Parker pic.twitter.com/eiePnmjlfx

domenica 18 marzo 2018

Some years ago while I was learning online I came across the wonderful ideas of some educators who suggested I should start blogging. Most of them were ELT Teachers and loved experimenting online.
I followed some ideas by Janet Bianchini, Nellie Deutsch and Shelly Terrell. Shelly is a friend, a virtual friend who is the one I am following in most of my CPD: she has collected some wonderful resources for educators who want to blog.

Blogging Resources, by shellyterrell
Since then I have started some blogs for my personal reflections while doing the Moocs, a blog for my students - it is not run by them and I have learnt to use different platforms. My greatest hope is to have more students who write and post in their class blogs and share ideas . I have used Blogger, Edublogs and other platforms but I am still learning- like all the life-long learners I have met online.

The course started in January and it is going to finish this month. It was a source of information and interesting ideas. Not to mention the great educators who have shared their blogs and their ideas.

We were asked to join the FB Group and we shared ideas, we were asked to do some tasks- I must confess that I need to finish some but I will do them in the next days.
Meanwhile I have learnt a lot and I have been guided to use Edublogs, although I have a free account and I cannot embed what I would like to do.

Here are two blogs which I am using thanks to the free account I have created. Edublogs is userfriendly and this course has helped me a lot.

After doing this course I have a short term goal : I need to improve the quality of my posts and find a way for being more interactive with my students. Also parents should be more interactive and I will have to work on a page in the blog.

What I would like to do in the next years is to help my students work in a class blog. I need more time and the help of the other teachers in my school. The lack of technology is a problem so I am using my blog http://tizianaangiolini.edublogs.org/ for posting some lessons and providing some help online for my learners.

I think that I will continue posting on FB page for Betterblogging too as I have found some interesting educators who have the similar interests I have.

I am writing this post in my old blog to thank Kathleen Morris and the educators who worked with her in this great course and I hope you will re-run a second course where we will continue sharing ideas about new ways of working with students.

mercoledì 7 febbraio 2018

It is a modern tool which can be used by teachers teaching English and to help their learners.
It can help to understand and summarize texts but it is also useful for learning new words or for developing the reading strategies of learners who are learning on their own.

Here are some inteesting videos showing us what you can do with this free tool:

I want to thank Shelly Sanchez Terrell who introduced this tool in one of her fabulous webinars online and the tutors working in a course by Zanichelli in Italy who have reminded me that this tool can enhance the students' reading strategies. I will write about this course in one of my next posts.